Chapter NINE
–Kaia–
I HAD NEVER, not for a second, been so angry at, then wickedly turned on by a man as I was Tréan from the moment he said I’d become his prisoner to fighting him off, only to find myself pinned beneath him on a bed.
I hated and craved him all at once, and it was far more intoxicating than it should be.
It would be safe to say I wanted to punch and screw him at the same time.
Over and over until whatever this feeling I’d become drenched in was assuaged, and I was free of it.
Back to who I had been a day ago.
Who I had been this morning.
After that, I’d find a way back to the twenty-first century, seek out Niall, kill him with my own two hands, and be done with it.
Yet even as I thought it, I knew nothing would go how I wanted.
Not when a harsh rush of desire shot through me as Tréan pinned me down.
Certainly not when everything liquified inside me when he cupped my cheek with his big, warm hand, and a brand-new set of emotions blew through me.
That was my opportunity to tag him because he’d freed one wrist, but I did no such thing.
All the fight fled me, and I melted against him.
Needed him inside me so much that it was hard to focus on his confession about our first run together.
How he should have ended me but saved me, at the cost of a lot, by the sounds of it.
What he didn’t say, but I sensed as his gaze fell to my lips and his mouth drew closer to mine, was he had little choice.
We had little choice the moment our wolves connected.
We synced up in a way that made no sense but felt perfectly natural at the same time.
Our draw to each other had been that intense. I still didn’t entirely remember our run, but it didn’t matter as I pressed my groin against his wonderfully hard cock, wanting it in me so bad it hurt.
Before that, though, shockingly enough, I wanted his lips against mine.
To feel his warm tongue inside my mouth.
I was still angry and had questions, but nothing seemed pressing at the moment.
Not when held up against what it would feel like to kiss him for the first time.
There.
Almost there.
His warm breath whispered across my lips.
I breathed him in. Only centimeters away now.
Or so I thought until something inside me went on high alert.
“What am I sensing?”
I managed, despite my suddenly bone-dry throat.
My hackles would have been raised if I were a wolf right now, I felt that threatened.
Small.
Intimidated.
And I didn’t like it one bit.
“’Tis okay, mate.”
Tréan stood and held his hand out to me.
“Come.
My brothers have sensed you and approach.”
He shook his head.
“As intimidating as they may appear, they won’t hurt you.”
“You say that, but I’m sensing some serious muscle heading our way.”
Out from under a haze of lust and still frustrated with him, I ignored his extended hand, scrambled off the bed, and scooped up all five blades, sheathing them here and there.
“And they feel more wary than welcoming.”
“Because they are,”
Tréan admitted.
“And will be until their wolves meet and connect with you via me.”
“Say what?”
Whipping my head back in astonishment, I rounded my eyes at him.
“You mean I’m not meeting their human halves but their wolves?”
“Ta.”
He took the fur blanket off the bed, chanted it into a fur cloak that still held his delicious scent, and wrapped it around my shoulders.
“Best to wear this so they understand you belong to me and are under my protection.”
“And what would happen if I didn’t wear it?”
I asked tentatively, unsure I wanted to hear the answer, but burying my head in the sand wasn’t my style.
Tell me what I need to know so I stood half a chance.
“’Tis hard to know how they would respond to you,”
Tréan replied, blunt in a way I appreciated.
“And I would hate to have to kill them if it wasn’t the right way.”
I nearly asked him if he was serious but saw by the look in his eyes that he was.
Not just that, but I felt tension in him that hadn’t been there minutes before.
This was a big damn deal.
These men, wolves, were important to him, but I was more important despite him having just met me.
“I wouldn’t let you kill them,”
I said softly, having no idea why the words tumbled from my mouth, but it was the truth.
Standing up a little straighter because I suddenly felt passionately about this, I notched my chin and narrowed my eyes at him.
“You get that right?”
I shook my head.
“I might not be your biggest fan right now because of your shady methods getting me here, but I won’t let you destroy the two wolves who mean the most to you, any more than I’d expect you to let me hurt my cousins if they ever meant you harm.”
I cringed as I said it because, wow, way to let him know I had started to feel that strongly about him, but I meant it.
Whatever I’d become since being bitten, then running with him during my True Moon Shift, as he called it, had his back.
That meant keeping the people we loved most alive for each other.
“Do you mean that?”
he asked just as softly.
His gaze lingered on my face in a way that made the throbbing ache between my thighs spike all that much more.
“I do,”
I replied, unable to lie to him.
“And I think you know that.”
“Then give me your weapons.”
Figure the odds.
“One step too far.”
“Then you are an even bigger risk-taker than I thought.”
“Glad you caught on.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Honestly, though, despite your I’ll Kill Them Myself vow, why would I ever, in my right mind, forfeit what I felt kept me safe?”
“Because of my vow,”
he said without hesitation.
“And because wolves generally take more kindly to humans without weapons.”
He wasn’t standing all that close, but I still felt the heat of his body all over me.
Felt his weight pressing down on me in a way that made me want to spread my thighs when that should be the last thing on my mind.
“Yet I’m a wolf, too,”
I reminded.
“Shouldn’t that mean something even if I meet your brothers in this form?”
“Not as much as you might think.”
He held out a hand.
“Give the blades to me, and I will return them afterward.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle a little nervously.
“Just like that, eh? Hand over my last means of protection when I’m about to cross paths with wolves, and, oh, yeah, that’s right, I almost forgot, greet them as your prisoner.
You understand that’s a lot to ask of a woman who just traveled back over a thousand years to an era I suspect is pretty ruthless and unlawful?”
“Ta,”
he said, his voice gentle in a fashion that, irritatingly enough, agreed with me as he moved closer.
“Yet I get the sneaking suspicion you will handle yourself just fine.”
The corner of his mouth curled up a fraction as he moved closer still.
“In fact, I sense you will thrive here.
That handling difficult people and unlawfulness is nothing new to you.”
He stopped in front of me, and his mouth curled a bit more.
“I also sense you can manage just fine without a weapon if need be.”
He brushed the back of his knuckles along my jaw, making me wish we were back on the bed.
His voice was a deep, throaty rumble telling me he felt the same before he went on.
“Hand over your blades, mo maité, and come meet my brothers...your new brothers.”
My new brothers? I don’t think so.
Yet, something about gazing into Tréan’s eyes when they flared gold with his inner beast made my tension fade.
He was right.
I did know how to fight without weapons, so maybe…just maybe. I hardly realized I had done it until I held out the last blade to him. The Viking dagger.
“Thank you,”
he said softly.
Only when he sheathed it did I realize he’d put me under a spell somehow.
“Did you just use magic on me?”
I frowned and rolled my shoulders, trying to understand why I was much more inclined to be back on the bed with him than worried about my safety.
“No.”
Catching me off guard with how extra sexy he became with a near smile on his face, he grinned.
“I seduced you.”
He shrugged and cocked his head as if thinking about that, then winked at me.
“I have heard ‘tis one of the best aspects of being mated, and I agree.”
“Did you just—”
I narrowed my eyes again— “wink?”
“I did.”
He narrowed his eyes in return.
“Why? Do people never wink at you?”
“Not people like you.”
“Have you met many medieval Irish wolves then?”
Before I could respond with something that might have met his sarcastic humor, he grew serious and took my hand.
“Come, Kaia, they draw close.
‘Tis time for you to meet Bain and Callum.”
Although tempted to pull my hand away and meet them on my own terms, as we exited the cave into the moonlit forest, and I caught new scents in the air my human half would have never picked up, I kept hold.
Fear spiked through me when, moments later, wolven eyes peered back at me through the darkness.
Yet I knew fear and knew it well.
We were old enemies, and never once had I let it conquer me, no matter what shape it took.
Never once had I clung to another to protect me because I was the protector, not the other way around.
“Let go,”
I said, my voice coming out more as a hoarse whisper than firmly as I’d hoped, but I meant it.
“I can stand on my own two feet, Tréan.”
“They will not be what you expect,”
he warned.
“Wolves of this era are different than yours.
They are—”
“Let go,”
I said more firmly, glad to find my voice stronger now.
Meeting Tréan’s wolven eyes, I nodded once.
“I’ve got this.”
Even though I sensed he fought leaving me vulnerable, I felt his pride as he let go, lowered his head once in respect, and backed away.
A part of me wanted to run in the opposite direction because this was scary as hell, but I didn’t run and hide.
Not anymore.
Those days were long gone.
So I squared my shoulders and kept going. I’m half wolf now, too, I kept telling myself as the forest felt like it closed in around me, and their wolven eyes seemed to get larger. More sinister. I’m just like them.
Yet when they finally emerged from the darkness, I realized I wasn’t just like them.
No way, no how.
They were huge.
Nearly the size of ponies. One was black with silver undertones, and the other a rich mahogany mixed with grey and tan. Both approached slowly, their eyes a mix of golden and red and intensity. I couldn’t speak if I wanted to.
Hell, I couldn’t even breathe, let alone swallow.
How were my legs still holding me up? My knees felt like rubber as the two wolves lowered their great heads and eyed me.
Sized me up and stalked me.
They were, too, because I knew their actions well.
I’d dealt with them enough over the years, mostly from men but sometimes women.
Remaining perfectly still, I willed my racing heart under control, yet a fresh burst of fear shot through me when they moved.
Circled me.
Assessed me in a way I’d never been assessed.
If I’d felt vulnerable earlier when I realized just how addicted to Tréan I had become and that I’d traveled back to medieval Ireland, this somehow made that look like a walk in the park.
Tréan had claimed he could protect me, but could he really?
These beasts were immense and as quick as they were large.
As strong as they were wary of me.
Sure, I was a young wolf, newly made, but I knew that much.
Tréan’s brothers weren’t passive sorts. No betas or omegas here. That made me wonder how Tréan kept them in line because they were natural-born leaders themselves.
Undoubtedly alphas.
Praying my legs kept me up, I remained perfectly still as they continued circling and sniffing, making me grateful for Tréan’s fur cloak.
So far, so good.
I hadn’t thrown up, and despite the fear I’d never quite felt outside of learning I was half wolf, I was holding my own.
Still standing.
In my world growing up, that meant something.
I still wore my much-earned badge of honor, which only my cousins and I knew about.
I was still a warrior as long as I was on my feet.
So this was good. I was good.
His brothers were all right with this.
Or so I thought until the mahogany-colored one suddenly gave me one last deep sniff, sat, tossed his head back, and howled at the moon.
No biggie, right? Wolves howl.
But not this close, and this booming, like his soul was crying out for something.
My chest tightened at the mournful sound, and I bit back a gasp when I swore I saw fiery sparks spit off him.
That was nothing compared to what the black wolf did, though.
He tested my fight against fear in a whole new way when he sniffed me one last time, locked eyes with me, and his lips pulled back in a low growl, showing me long, dangerous fangs that could rip my throat out in an instant.
If that weren’t enough, the hair on his back rose, going razorback, making him so terrifying I was amazed I didn’t lose control of my bladder.
Yet it seemed help was on the way.
Maybe.
When a low, deep growl resounded behind me, everything inside went still.
So still, it was a wonder my heart kept beating.
Yet it did as the black and mahogany wolves quieted and lowered to their haunches in submission to what was right behind me.
I closed my eyes, feeling his heat at my back in a way I shouldn’t.
Felt it in a way that was as familiar as his human flesh, though he wasn’t touching me.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, I wanted to run.
Flee. Not face the monster. But this time, I knew that was impossible. No matter how far I went, there was no escaping him. No getting away. How could I?
The monster was mine.
And it was time to look him in the face.
So, I slowly turned, and my breath caught.
I understood why the other two had submitted so swiftly.
Understood as I looked into the magnificent golden eyes of a white wolf even larger than his brothers.
Broader, more muscular, and stronger, if possible, because the other two were no joke.
My knee buckled as if someone had nudged it, and my head nearly lowered as if someone had pushed it, urging me to bow, and I didn’t much like that.
Not at all.
So, despite the white wolf’s eyes remaining trained on me, just as Tréan’s often did, I forced myself to stand the minute my knee touched the ground and forced my head back up.
Met his golden gaze head-on because I bowed to no man.
“Yet I am not a man,”
Tréan said into my mind, surprising me with the power of his deep rumble.
How different it sounded now but just as arousing.
The white wolf came closer, eye to eye with me in a way that would terrify most.
“I am a wolf, and you are daring, indeed. Some might claim too daring not bowing to your alpha.”
What to say to that? I had no idea.
All I knew was I wouldn’t bow, and if he had expected it of me, then he wasn’t any kind of mate I wanted.
“Some people might say I’m daring by not bowing to you, or do you say that, Tréan?”
I said, amazed my voice worked because my throat felt full of my pounding heart.
I was doubly amazed I could fight my inner wolf and not submit to him because I now understood my inner beast had tried to make me bow.
Instead, I looked his great white wolf in the eyes when it came face to face with me.
“Do you want a female, or mate as you call it, who bows to you?”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Or do you want an equal?”
I swallowed hard, unsure why I said it other than it needed saying.
“Someone who stands strong by your side.
Someone who can dish out shit as much as she can take it.”
His eyes narrowed a little, and his nostrils twitched.
“I have no interest in shit, as you call it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Pretty sure you do.”
“This is becoming an odd conversation.”
“Agreed.”
And it might have grown odder if I hadn’t heard the last thing I expected.
Something that would set us on a different path.